Remember the old cartoon about the hippopotamus who was terribly afraid of vaccinations and ended up with infectious jaundice? An excellent and instructive cartoon for children who are afraid of one injection, left behind the scenes the main truth: in the hospital, a patient with jaundice begins a real carousel of injections, both intravenous jet, and intravenous drip, and intramuscular. That is, in fact, our big hippo avoided one unpleasant moment and received a couple of weeks of torture in return (in his understanding).
Have you already looked up at the headline to once again see what the article is about and understand what the yellow hippo has to do with it? It's okay, we're healthy (probably). The fact is that the behavior of this cartoon character is reminiscent of the behavior of small business leaders who think about the implementation of CRM: “Eh, I’ll postpone what will happen to me! Another time somewhere in the future somehow another time sometime later." And the symptoms, meanwhile, develop, time is running out, perspectives are blurred.
A frame from the cartoon "About a hippo who was afraid of vaccinations", version for CRM
Hello small business
So, let's imagine a simple situation: there is a small business (in any field, even IT, even an agency, even production) and its head. The business lives and generates income, the manager constantly has a headache because of endless small problems: salespeople get out of hand, constantly forget about customers, deals do not close, but hang on the first conversation, paperwork takes a lot of time. And it seems like work is a plus, but somehow quite stressful.
What risks does it carry?
- The risk of a lost deal - due to forgotten meetings, calls and letters, due to delays in service or invoicing, etc. You need to understand that in the world of the ubiquitous Internet, potential customers will find out about your service problems faster than you usually write a press release about the next event in the company (tie up, by the way, a waste of time).
- Risk of disloyal customers - existing customers can move into the disloyal camp due to insufficiently personalized communication, problems with managers, or slow response to a request. And competitors are already pulling such customers by the hand. And for the pocket.
- The risk of losing part of the data or the entire customer base is a serious risk for an expensive asset. For some reason, small businesses have not learned to calculate the cost of data and customer base, the cost of acquisition and retention, the total value of the contact base. But there are those who know how to calculate it all and sell it. It is highly likely that your employees will take away both the base and customers by going to work for competitors. In addition, unorganized and unstructured data can easily get lost on its own, which is even more annoying.
- Risk of incorrect reporting and wrong decisions. You are forced to believe the reports that employees provide you, and they make them in different ways: some in good faith, some on their knees, some from the bulldozer, some from the ceiling. Thus, the idea of affairs is mediocre, and the decisions made on its basis are wrong.
An example from life. The company produced dairy products, the dealer department was responsible for sales. It was too lazy to collect data from retail outlets, and some of their own outlets didn’t even keep records. They drew approximate numbers, marketing unfolded share after share, changed the packaging. Large chains stopped taking three products, there were complaints about high balances. And so it would have continued if the production manager had not accidentally heard from the seller in the kiosk near the plant that these three items had completely ceased to be taken. We conducted an analysis, surveys, assembled a focus group - it turned out that the competitor's product won both in terms of price and flavor additives (fruit fillers). We bought “delicious” fillers, changed the technology, removed 1 product from production - chains began to take the product, sales increased. Moreover, the cost of technological changes cost a third of the cost of marketing campaigns to promote the "corpses".
- Business-to-business risk is a dangerous symptom in small businesses. Employees, revolving in a small team, believe that they have already cut through the trick and plunged into all the intricacies of doing business and begin to build a company within the employer's company, for example, entering into contracts with clients directly or providing additional services bypassing the company. This not only takes away money from the company, but also creates completely useless employees: they spend almost all their working time on “their own business”. By the way, a common situation for the IT sector.
Collectively, this is the risk of lost income - each of the risks takes away some of the money that the company could earn. If you add to all this reputational risk and the resources spent on overcoming problems, you get some kind of completely unbearable burden for small businesses.
How can he be helped?
Whatever happens to you, there are always at least two ways out. In the case of small business management, the range of outputs is much wider.
Action that can be taken
Advantages
Disadvantages
To breed autocracy and despotism in the company
- Rapid introduction of measures.
- Quick reaction to the impact - for some time, the employees will "quiet" and start working.
- Formally - no cost.
- Negative feedback.
- Layoffs are possible due to changes in the situation.
- A psychologically difficult experience, especially if you don't feel like it.
- Short term impact.
Carry out mass demotivation (deprivation of bonuses, layoffs)
- An effective and intimidating measure.
- Short term money saving.
- Increasing the transparency of work.
- Dismissals and reputational risk in the external environment.
- Legal risk (claims, inspections).
- Employee distrust.
- A sharp increase in whistleblowing (to cover up their affairs).
Implement internal control systems*
*worst measure imaginable
- Transparency of most actions of employees.
- Increasing employee engagement.
The whole measure is one continuous minus. This degree of distrust of employees is detrimental to the company and, over time, will lead to both the loss of self-respecting employees and continuous attempts to “hack” the system.
Do micromanagement on an ongoing basis**
** short-term crisis measure
- Maximum control of all tasks.
- Meeting deadlines and obligations.
- Increasing employee attention.
- There are no sharply expressed fast negative reactions.
- Everyone has a high level of stress in the company.
- All the time is spent on redoing tasks and constant monitoring.
- Numerous conflicts in the team.
- Decreased employee initiative.
Implement (and use!)
- Maximum and inconspicuous control of all tasks.
- Accounting for the client base and data storage.
- Up-to-date and accurate reporting.
- Automated processes.
- Reducing resource costs for routine tasks, etc.
- Difficulties of implementation and training.
- There is a payback period.
- The effect of implementation is delayed for 3-6 months.
- Group resistance.
- Cash costs for the project.
Introduce a KPI system - key performance indicators
- Clear lines of responsibility and responsibilities.
- Every employee knows their targets.
- Transparency of work processes.
- measurability of the result.
- High level of self-control.
- Rejection by employees.
- If the system is not balanced and clumsily implemented - negative results of the application.
- KPIs are not suitable for all employees.
Introduce new ways of communication: five minutes, rallies, meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc.
- Direct and open dialogue between employees and the manager.
- General awareness.
- High speed of decision making.
- Generation of non-standard ideas.
- A climate of trust and friendship.
Waste of time.
The degeneration of meetings into a formality.
Skewed attention towards active employees (but not always the most effective ones).
Change approaches in the complex:
- introduce new ways of communicating
- develop corp. culture
- implement KPI
- Fast positive cumulative effect.
- A sharp transition to intensive development.
- "Movement" in the company will cheer up and unite employees on the principle of "turned for the better."
- It is necessary to allocate time and resources for updating, implementing, testing changes.
- We need a global process refactoring.
- There will definitely be opponents of change.
There is no sure way out, most likely a combination of several of them, which are suitable for a particular company, will do. However, there are elements that will not hurt inside any changes: for example, automation of operational work and resource management (CRM, ERP, project management system, ticket system, etc.) or the implementation of KPI (reasonable, flexible and gradual). We talked about KPI in detail и , and about CRM in 🙂 Let's talk in the 81st, this time about the simplest implementation .
CRM is not a magic pill, but just a tool
CRM vendors love to talk about how CRM doubles sales, cuts headcount by a quarter, and makes hair soft and silky. No, that's not how things are done. You choose and buy a CRM system, start implementing it and using it at the same time, train employees, overcome negative moods and reactions, and only after at least six months you begin to feel progress. But what a progress! So, according to Salesforce research and analytics, businesses using CRM software see a 2% increase in sales, a 29% increase in sales productivity, and a 34% sales forecast accuracy. The numbers look quite realistic for Russian companies as well. But, I repeat, this is not done by CRM, but by company employees who have learned how to use CRM.
What CRM Can Do
- integrates almost all business entities on a single platform: customer and transaction data, business processes, reporting, documentation, financial security, warehouse management, planning, telephony, and so on. Thus, you get not just a plate with a bunch of data, but a connected complex structure from which you can pull out any data and analytics at any time (for example, in 100+ ready-made reports and you can create as many of your own as you like).
- CRM improves customer relationships. Your employees always know who is calling (the company card pops up), see the full history of the client, thanks to reminders and notifications in the interface, they do not forget about a single contact, quickly place orders, issue invoices, and issue a package of closing documents. And all this in one interface - in any case, everything is implemented in RegionSoft CRM in this way.
- CRM registers and stores all the information necessary for business. Employees enter some information by hand, some comes from the chat on the site, the application form on the site, etc. All information is stored in linked tables and, thanks to the distribution of access rights and backup, is reliably protected from damage and the receipt of data that does not meet the employee's work needs.
- CRM makes it easier to work with documentation - the most dreary and painstaking in commerce. Moreover, tasks and micro-tasks related to documentation can be added to automated business processes and within them all the necessary documents can be generated at the right time in neat printed forms.
- CRM (immediately or over time) can be customized and fine-tuned according to the needs of the company, it easily scales with the growth of the business. Of course, if we are talking about advanced CRM, which have been developed for more than one year and not on the knee, but taking into account a serious study of demand and on a competent stack. CRM from freelancer Vasya Ivanov for 30 rubles. it is incapable of this (however, like everything else from the list).
What CRM can't do
- Sell for you and for your employees. This is not artificial intelligence, not a robot (in the philistine sense of the word), not a person, but just software, a bunch of human-written logic under the interface. So, it needs to be opened and worked - then the result will not be far off. The fact of buying and installing software does not mean anything other than the fact of buying and installing - do not be fans of the cargo cult.
- Exactly for the same reasons, CRM will not be able to replace a person - only to make him more productive and relieve him of routine.
- betray you. By itself, a CRM system (even a cloud or mobile one) will not give out data to your competitors, will not lay out a customer base for sale, and will not divert customers. Information security is protection not from technology, but from technology in the hands of a person.
Take and implement
We have repeatedly talked about complex implementation schemes and even , which can be downloaded, printed and implemented as a turn-based strategy. However, both this scheme and the implementation algorithm itself are a common story, an ideal scenario for an ideal company in a vacuum. In fact, there are complex implementations, and there are simple ones, and it depends primarily on what kind of company it is: for example, it may be easier to implement a CRM system in a pipe-rolling company with 150 employees than to implement it in a small company with 20 employees. 20000 people with a warehouse, own production, an assortment of XNUMX items and a network of representatives. But still, the implementation of CRM in a small business is often quite linear and painless.
Therefore, in order to get results faster, choose the CRM that you like (it doesn’t have to be us or one of the sensational solutions at all) and start working closely with it.
- Start small: even if you just install CRM yourself and do not ask the vendor a single question, on the very first day you can start entering data into the client card and the nomenclature into directories. This is a base that will accumulate and remain, and all the "bells and whistles" will already be associated with it.
- Make a list of those employees / departments / divisions where CRM is needed in the first place - for them, conduct the most in-depth training, make settings and collect feedback from them after 2-3 months of work to use it when rolling out the project to others. Let it be your early birds (early followers).
- Do not be afraid - even if no one in your company has technical skills, you will not be lost, because the CRM system itself is the same ordinary software as Microsoft Office or the social network interface in your favorite browser, all entities work perfectly are digested. And with technical settings and problems, the company that develops the CRM system will always help (in our case, even for a quite tolerable fee).
- Don't get hung up on the demo version or the free package - just buy the minimum required package of licenses/connections right away. This will give you more guarantees and opportunities (for the same backups), and employees will understand that this is not a “boss going crazy”, but a new working interface with which it is time to start making friends.
- Do not ask or force your employees to fill in too many fields in CRM - set up those that you really need and will help in operational work. Let this be the most important information you need to make a deal. Gradually, as the lead is developed, the client card will be filled with other information.
- Try to have as many employees as possible working in CRM (not only salespeople, but also support, and logistics, and marketing, and warehouse manager ...). The more employees enter data into CRM and update information, the more relevant, optimal and profitable CRM will be for you.
- If you don't have much money to implement CRM, start with / packages / tariffs and gradually increase the functionality. But if there is money, then it is better to immediately buy the “top” version for your level, so as not to delay the full start of work in the system.
When is CRM really needed?
We are convinced that CRM should be in 99% of companies of any type of business. However, it happens that the work seems to be going on somehow and the implementation can be postponed for some reason. However, there is a list of signs that clearly indicate that without CRM - a pipe.
- Your employees are constantly switching between several working tools: a virtual PBX, Excel spreadsheets, an email client, a task management system that they set up for themselves, instant messengers and, for example, 1C. They are uncomfortable, because information is stored separately, not connected, and this state of affairs leaves no chance to use normal analytics.
- The sales cycle is too long and the industry does not expect it.
- Interesting customers jump out in the middle of the funnel (which you can't see, ha!) and leave without explanation. Perhaps they deal directly with your employees and somewhere a big rollback and reputational risk is brewing.
- It takes a lot of time to collect and organize data, you have to copy and re-save numerous tables, information is lost.
- Managers "do not recognize" customers, because they don’t know with whom they communicate, everything rests on personal connections and contacts scored in cellular salespeople. If the client is not interesting to salespeople, he merges.
- You know nothing about the sales profile and the effectiveness of each individual manager, and managers have not heard about the prioritization of transactions and believe that the priority is the one who pays a lot / shouts loudly / complains to The Hague and Strasbourg, and not the one who is ready to consistently close small deals and not someone who wants a discount on a giant shipment.
- Your business processes have not heard the word "business processes" and are more like a paralyzed bundle of nerves.
- Managers fight for clients, intercept them from each other, and generally behave more like intelligence officers on treason than like people who should bring in most of the income.
In these cases, the CRM system is both an ambulance and intensive care. In the rest - a recommendation for the successful and proper development of the company.
Once upon a time, I liked the definition that rated good CRM systems as nothing more than a digital shell of sales. However, today it is the digital shell of the entire business, because cover most of the interactions in the company. But the definition of bad CRM remains the same: bad CRM is a system that creates more problems than it solves.
In general, we are for everything good. And you?
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Source: habr.com